Class went on. No one even whispered a single word regarding recent events as they usually did.

Not even a mention of The Newspaper Crew's member, Kennedy, committing suicide.

No. Life went on. No one cared. Everyone was happy.

And it annoyed me.

It annoyed me that the cherry scented murderer had the nerve to sit next to me in class.

She hummed happily through class—answering questions and raising her hand for attendance as if she'd been here all year long.

No one questioned her presence. No one questioned the fact that she had a bloody weed whacker leaning oh-so casually against her desk. It was as though the school had just decided that psychopaths were 'normal'.

The bell rang for the end of class. Miki jumped up from her seat and quickly bounded over to Nero, who was making a run for the door. She assaulted him with a glomp as she squealed into his ear, "You weren't thinking of going to lunch without me, were you Nero-kun~?"

He made pleading eyes at me, which were ignored.

I walked over to Miku's desk. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh Len." Miku giggled. "You don't need to keep worrying about me. If anything, I should be asking you how you're doing. How's your nose doing?"

I felt the white bandage taped across my nose. It still hurt but significantly less from when I first received the injury.

"Could be better." I shrugged.

Miku lowered her voice to a whisper. "So Rin's not still angry with you, is she?"

I looked at Rin from the corner of my eye. I could see her still brewing away in angst as she shifted her glaring gaze from me to Miku.

I snorted. "What do you think? Come on, let's just go get lunch."

Miku nodded happily. "Yeah! I'll go grab Meiko, Kaito, and Luka!"

"Kaito?" I questioned.

Miku caught herself. "Oh right… I meant Meiko and Luka," Miku corrected wistfully.

I started to put my arm around her in an effort to comfort her, but she shrugged me off and walked away quickly to leave the classroom.

I felt slightly hurt from the rejection, but I could understand that she just needed some time to think.

"Kagamine Len, may I speak with you?"

I glanced up to the front of the room at the teacher, except I was surprised to see it wasn't the usual teacher. Instead, in the fat woman's place, it was a man with long purple hair tied in a ponytail wearing some fancy suit.

"Um, sure."

As I began to step up to the front of the now empty classroom the man asked, "Could you close the door? This is a private matter."

I closed the door, wondering what could be so private to discuss.

Did I fail some test? If so, I should probably tell him I don't care…

I sat on the desk in front of the teacher's.

Just as the man started to speak, I decided to butt in with my own question. "What happened to the old teacher?"

For a split second a look of confusion registered on his face but he quickly masked it over with composure. "She retired."

The hag wasn't that old. Maybe she retired due to her health problems of being so overweight.

"Anyway," he started, "I wanted to speak with you about the recent deaths that have been occurring. Care to tell me about it?"

"Why would you want to know?" I asked suspiciously. "You're just a teacher."

He leaned forward in his chair, casting a wary glance to the door. "I'm actually a detective hired by one of the victim's families. I want to know if you know anything that could help to bring the killer to justice."

"Wait, one the families hired you?" I queried, confused, "Why aren't the police working the case instead? There have been three fucking murders!"

"That's why I was hired. The police aren't doing anything about it. Out of curiosity, I was wondering if you knew what to make of it. Why don't you think they're interfering?"

I puffed out a cheek trying to think of some sort of conspiracy theory. Considering that the one American girl was here on a scholarship, what wouldn't make her parents pursue the case?

"Money," I answered. "The school's paying off the families to keep quiet."

The teacher nodded. "Exactly. However, the girl, Suzune Miyazaki, her family wasn't content with this. That's why the student, Shion Kaito, was arrested. They wanted the murder exposed. But once they received word of the other unsolved murders, they thought it best to have that killer exposed as well."

"Why are you telling me this then? What information could I possibly have for you?"

It was kind of weird that this new teacher decided to come to me about this. How would he know I had anything to do with the killer? Then again, I was pretty sure that an asylum escapee showing up out of nowhere would raise a red flag. Especially since we share the same name.

"I was hoping you could tell me that," the teacher replied.

"Rin," I responded. "She's the killer. She showed up a week ago and since then everything has just been going to hell. She's fucking crazy!"

The teacher sat looking at me with a poker face.

"You don't believe me?" I asked with disbelief. "Just look at her! She has stitches and a chainsaw! How does she not look like a psychopath?!"

"Stitches? She has stitches?"

"Yeah. On her arms, legs, face—everywhere. Well, except for her right arm because the crazy bitch cut mine off and took it as a souvenir!" I ranted.

"Uh-huh." The teacher nodded.

"Why the hell are you acting so calm?" I spat with growing irritation. "There's a killer running loose through the halls of the school and all you do is sit there and look at me like I'm the crazy one! Well, screw this! I'm not wasting my time."

I started to march to the door when the teacher grabbed my wrist.

"What the hell do you want?!" I screamed.

"Len, you need to listen to me," he said sternly. "This perfect 'life' you 'had' all along was meant to fall apart. It never existed."

I turned to face the teacher with confusion plastered across my face. His words somehow sounded familiar but it felt like it wasn't his words, instead it appeared like a quote from someone else.

He seemed satisfied that he had my attention and continued, "It's just an illusion, a dream, a wish, a fake. Time to face the life you really have. The one you really lived."

I snorted rudely. "Whatever, old man. You're full of BS."

As I stalked out the room the teacher added, "But I'll warn you, it's nothing like the one you have here."

I slammed the classroom door shut and stomped down the hallway feeling anger plaguing me from the inside. Walking down the hallway, I could see some girls from up ahead poking their head from a doorway, whispering to each other.

I gritted my teeth in efforts to resist the urge to start screaming at them as well. They'd probably think I was nuts.